The Altona Police Service dealt with a pair of new scams this past week.

The first involved fraudsters posing as a supervisor of a local not-for-profit business via email. The note included a list of errands that the 'supervisor' asked the employee to run that day, as well as a request for the employee's cell phone number. Once that number was provided, text messages immediately came in directing the employee to purchase $1,000 in gift cards that the supervisor was going to give out as 'staff appreciation gifts.'

The employee purchased the gift cards and was then instructed to photograph and text the activation numbers on 5 of the $100.00 Google Play cards. The employee did so at first but became suspicious when the 'boss' asked them to purchase another $500.00 worth of iTunes gift cards. At this point, the employee became suspicious and called their real boss, and learned that they been scammed.

If you start receiving email requests of this nature, the Altona Police Service encourages you to verify the information before you act on it. In this case, the email address was incorrect.

Police also warn to be careful when you open attachments as Malware or other viruses can be injected into your computer by simply opening an infected email attachment. If you suspect your computer has been hacked or infected, you should unplug your computer immediately and get it in for inspection and repair.

The second scam that surfaced this week saw the victim receive a text message or phone call instructing them to call a certain phone number, referring to it as a 'divisional number.' The message also contains a warning that if you don't call that number there will be a warrant for your arrest.

Altona Police is again reminding the public that no law enforcement organization would operate this way, and urges you to simply ignore these calls or texts and delete them.

People who fall victim to a fraud or receive these emails, text messages or phone calls are encouraged to report them to the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre.